The YU7 has achieved explosive sales, but Xiaomi's AI glasses are still far from reaching their "iPhone moment."

The entire market is waiting for an epoch - making AI glasses, a killer product with a brand - new entry point and interaction ecosystem. Xiaomi AI glasses are one of the highly - anticipated contenders. After succeeding in the automotive sector, can Xiaomi easily conquer the AI glasses market?

On the evening of June 26th when Xiaomi YU7 was released, Xiaomi launched its first AI glasses, priced at 1,999 yuan. They weigh 40g and are equipped with a 12 - megapixel camera. In terms of product functions and technical routes, it "pays tribute" to Ray - Ban Meta.

The hardware specifications are decent, but this pricing indicates that Xiaomi is not in a hurry to engage in a price war. The relatively high price is not the only obstacle to purchase. For a fashionable product like glasses that are worn on the face, their rather mediocre appearance may also deter some users. Maybe Xiaomi has poured all its top - notch aesthetics into car - making.

Tencent Technology invited a large number of users to try on the Xiaomi AI glasses prototypes. More than 70% of the testers' primary negative feedback about the glasses was that they were not exquisitely designed and not fashionable.

A user around me who owns multiple Oakley glasses exclaimed at the first sight of the Xiaomi AI glasses: "They look bad and are not cool."

Image source: Xiaomi press conference

Comparing Meta and Xiaomi, Li Nan, the CEO of Angry Miao, said: In terms of technology platform selection, charging and battery life, Xiaomi outperforms Meta. However, in terms of design sense, product texture, style, and lifestyle, Meta still firmly outshines Xiaomi. "Considering that this thing is worn on the face, Xiaomi should lower the price, otherwise, it will be difficult to win. Meta's products originally only have a 2 - 4 - hour battery life. How many people really buy them for practical use? Most people buy them to show off. So, the gap in design, texture, and lifestyle is actually quite fatal."

01 A Transitional Product Lacking Display Function

With Xiaomi's entry, all the major players in the current AI glasses market have emerged.

Among them, there is a consumer electronics team represented by Xiaomi, Lenovo, and Samsung; an internet team represented by ByteDance, Baidu Xiaodu, and Alibaba Tmall Genie; and a startup team represented by Rokid and Thunderbird Innovation.

Currently, the product forms in the AI glasses market can be roughly divided into three categories:

• 1. Pure earphone glasses
• 2. AI glasses integrating earphone functions and a camera. The technology at this stage is relatively mature.
• 3. AR glasses with a display function. This solution has the highest technical difficulty but also represents the future the most. However, the expensive and bulky Apple Vision Pro is not a mature answer.

Currently, Xiaomi's answer is the second option - although this is regarded as a transitional form by industry insiders.

The current popularity of AI glasses is because Ray - Ban Meta achieved over two million in shipments, creating a quasi - phenomenon - level product that excited the industry. The success of Ray - Ban Meta with a reduced - configuration model has shown AR players that there is a market for the intermediate form with reduced features.

However, what users are paying for is the appearance. Meta has currently abandoned the display function and focused on integrating earphones and cameras, which is the technical route that Xiaomi has emulated. But in terms of Meta, both the Ray - Ban and the new Oakley models have a significantly stronger sense of fashion and coolness.

Not only is Xiaomi unable to achieve excellent battery life, but the display function is also the last hurdle yet to be overcome.

Zhu Mingming, the founder of Rokid, is betting on the optical waveguide solution. The optical waveguide module is significantly superior to the Micro - LED module in terms of weight, size, and power consumption. Moreover, the brightness of the optical waveguide module can reach 1000 nits, allowing it to be used directly in sunlight, which simplifies the body design. It can also be regarded as a compromise product in the absence of major breakthroughs in the display field.

Currently, Thunderbird, Geely Meizu, etc., are adding display functions to AI glasses by using monochromatic optical waveguides and pure text displays. However, this can only provide some simple information prompts. The price cannot be kept low, and it will significantly reduce the battery life. At the same time, the weight will suddenly increase to 80 grams, making it impossible for users to wear them all day due to battery life and weight issues. The optical waveguide technology still has obvious bottlenecks, such as light leakage, glare, and rainbow patterns, which will make consumers uncomfortable.

Even for Rokid, which has been deeply involved in this industry for 10 years, Zhu Mingming still doesn't dare to be overly optimistic. He is not ready for a killer product and is not inclined to rush out a 60 - point solution. He believes that the product must reach 90 points before being launched to avoid being backfired by negative reviews. Zhu Mingming also believes that the success of Xiaomi AI glasses is inevitable. Rokid's strategy is not to be the first but to "get a seat at the table" and secure a place in the market.

02 Mobile Phone Manufacturers Have an Advantage

Market experts believe that the most suitable portable hardware for the AI era is glasses, which are closer to the human brain and eyes than mobile phones. Secondly, mobile phone manufacturers have more advantages than any other manufacturers.

At this stage, AI glasses are naturally accessories to mobile phones, relying on mobile phones to provide sufficient computing power. Therefore, it is logical for mobile phone manufacturers to produce AI glasses. Moreover, they are well - funded. For example, entrepreneur Wu Dezhou said about the emergence of intelligence that not only do mobile phone manufacturers have years of imaging technology accumulation and can afford to maintain an imaging team of a thousand people, but also because they can access the mobile phone application permissions they own, control the entrance to the AI experience, and have an "absolute advantage."

For AI glasses to become a personal all - day intelligent assistant, accessing all mobile phone permissions is an unavoidable hurdle. For example, functions like booking flights, ordering online car - hailing services, ordering takeaways, or recording meeting minutes will greatly affect the user experience of AI glasses.

As long as users cannot do without their mobile phones for a single day, AI glasses cannot grow independently outside the mobile phone ecosystem. Therefore, mobile phone manufacturers are the players most capable of seizing the dividends of the AI glasses era.

Although mobile phone manufacturers have a low profile in the current AI glasses market, in Wu Dezhou's view, it doesn't matter whether mobile phone manufacturers enter the market half a year earlier or later. "When the industry enters the explosive growth stage, the competition in user experience is essentially a competition in full - stack capabilities. In this regard, mobile phone manufacturers have a crushing structural advantage."

At this point, it can be asserted that AI glasses are still within the reach of mobile phone manufacturers. Mobile phone manufacturers stand at the crossroads of the strongest hardware and internet forces. If they expand into the automotive field, they can become the dominant players; if they expand into the glasses field, they can still be the leaders; if they expand into the AI agent field, they can also outperform other competitors. One can't help but sigh that choice is more important than effort. So, Xiaomi has full confidence to "be late but make it right" in the AI glasses market. It is not in a hurry to exchange price for market share but can wait for the technical solutions to mature.

Therefore, the outcome of the "battle of a hundred glasses" was already determined when the "battle of a hundred mobile phones" ended a decade ago. The new interaction entry point and the epoch - making trillion - level market that everyone has high hopes for have once again become the spoils of Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and even Transsion.

For this reason, it is generally difficult for small and medium - sized startups in the AI glasses market to raise funds.

Even well - funded internet companies find it difficult to control the entry point of glasses. Internet companies do not have system - level permissions, and their applications are easily cleared in the background, resulting in a poor user experience. Meta's current core advantage is only the shallow integration of its own ecosystem - for example, enabling quick sharing of glasses content to Instagram.

Although Baidu launched its Xiaodu glasses early, claiming to be the world's first native AI hardware product equipped with a Chinese large - language model, it has fallen into obscurity after some time. Considering Baidu's tendency to start strong but end weakly in the hardware field (such as in the automotive and speaker sectors), its chances of winning in the glasses market are slim.

In fact, so far, no one has really bought AI glasses for the AI inside.

For example, most consumers who buy Ray - Ban AI glasses first pay for the Ray - Ban brand and the appearance, and experiencing AI is ranked as the lowest priority. In this sense, Xiaomi AI glasses may be used as production tools by self - media bloggers, but it is unlikely to break through the current sales volume of Meta.

However, it should be noted that another significance of AI glasses is to accumulate data and refine algorithms for embodied intelligence in advance.

Li Hongwei, the founder of "Thunderbird Innovation," told 36kr that AI glasses can enhance and understand human daily behaviors and interactions in a natural way. When a person picks up a water bottle to drink, the AI glasses observe the specific action of picking up the cup. This understanding ability is crucial for the development of AI and robots. Because for robots to understand the real world, they need a multi - modal, first - person - perspective large - language model similar to that of glasses.

At this moment, AI glasses and embodied intelligence are deeply connected. However, both of them still have a long way to go in terms of technological maturity and are about 5 - 10 years away from the "iPhone moment."

*This is only an introduction to the company and does not constitute a recommendation to buy stocks.

This article is from the WeChat official account “Zhou Tian Finance” (ID: techfinsight), written by Zhou Tian Finance and published by 36kr with authorization.